Smog covers downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties recorded the recorded the nation’s highest number of unhealthy daysdespite showing improvement according a new study on air pollution. (File AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Southern California retained the dubious distinction of having the worst air quality in the nation, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.

For the second year in a row, Los Angeles, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties recorded the nation’s highest number of unhealthy days for ozone, the caustic, lung-damaging gas that cause shortness of breath and in the long term is associated with asthma, COPD and lung cancer.

The skyline of Riverside, on a smoggy day, as seen from Sycamore Highlands Park in Riverside in 2016. (Photo by KURT MILLER/THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE, SCNG)

The Los Angeles-Long Beach metro area, which includes the Inland Empire, was ranked at the top of all cities in the United States for ozone pollution, far ahead of New York City-Newark, New Jersey, which came in 10th in the 2018 “State of the Air” rankings.

The region also did not fare well for particulate pollution, rising to 7th worst from 9th worst last year. Fine particles from diesel exhaust can bypass the body’s defense system and lodge deep in the lungs, damaging pulmonary passages.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has linked year-round exposure with increased hospital visits and slowed lung growth in children and teenagers. New studies found elderly women breathing unsafe levels of fine-particle pollution were twice as likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Progress?

The Lung Association studied air pollution data over a three-year period from 2014-2016 and calculated a weighted annual average of days that ozone and particles exceeded federal safety levels. For ozone, San Bernardino County led all five counties with nearly 146 unhealthy days, followed in order by: Riverside, 122; Los Angeles, 112; Orange, 13 and Ventura, 12.

A tthick layer of haze hangs over the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach I 2017. (File photo by Chuck Bennett, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

Riverside had the most unhealthy particle days with 13, followed by: Los Angeles, 10; San Bernardino, 8; Orange, 3 and Ventura, 0. The five drought years kicked up the number of particle pollution days in the L.A. Basin from 2011-2016.

From mid 2016-2018, particle days dropped from a high of 37 in 2013 to 11 in 2016, when more rain tamped down dust, brake-lining filings and other particles found on roadways, according to the report’s authors.

“We have seen a lot of progress over the 19 years we’ve been doing these reports,” said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior director of air quality and climate change for the American Lung Association in California during a phone interview Wednesday. Holmes-Gen said 50 years ago Los Angeles’ air resembled that of Beijing today.

“But we’ve also seen upticks in ozone in many parts of Southern California, especially in San Bernardino,” she said. “We attribute these increases to the heat waves. 2016 was the second-warmest year on record.”

Holmes-Gen explained that warmer air creates more smog in the atmosphere. Ozone is produced when oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds are exposed to sunlight and heat.

“All of this points to the fact that climate change represents a significant challenge to air quality progress throughout the state,” she said. “We are improving air quality, but the impacts of climate change are interfering with progress.”

Two of the cleanest cities in America were Salinas for zero ozone days and Santa Barbara, for least amount of short-term particle pollution.

Southern California air pollution, however, will get worse if federal attacks by the Trump Administration on the Clean Air Act, carbon-reduction rules for power plants and federal automobile efficiency standards come to fruition, she said.

California goals

California is fighting an attempt by the EPA to revoke a waiver in place for nearly 10 years allowing the state to set its own fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The EPA last month released a draft decision outlining the reasons for easing fuel efficiency regulations for cars and light-truck model years 2022-2025.

California also has a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 through the use of biofuels, solar and wind to produce electricity. Also, the state has put in place incentives for buying electric or plug-in hybrid cars, a tool for cutting criteria and climate pollutants.

Southern California has experienced a 30 percent reduction in ozone and more than an 80 percent drop in particle pollution in the past 19 years of Lung Association reports on air quality, Holmes-Gen said. She attributes much of the success to the federal Clean Air Act, enacted in 1963 and strengthened in 1970 and 1990 and state clean air regulations.

“These federal efforts will roll back our progress on air pollution,” she said. “It will mean more unhealthy air days, more emergency room visits and higher healthcare costs.”

Health groups, the California Air Resources Board, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and Southern California Edison have advocated for more electric car sales and for building additional electric charging stations. The electrification of transit is a part of the SCAQMD’s plan for reducing ozone and particles.

“The good news is we have 500,000 zero emission cars on the road. There are 30 models of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. In a few years we will be up to 100 models,” she said. “We are going away from fossil fuels.”

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.